A lot of federal government departments need clearance from Ottawa before making statements to the public, usually with the explanation that the government needs to be seen to be speaking "with one voice" rather than having conflicting statements from various departments.
Of course, where this approach runs into difficulty is where the statements don't (or shouldn't have) any political element. Whether specific research has a political element to it is probably debatable on a case-by-case basis, but the Tories are, shall we say, control freaks, so this broad policy isn't particularly surprising.
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